1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ultrasonic treatment apparatus for incising or emulsifying living tissues, or for breaking stones in organs, by applying ultrasonic vibrations to the tissues or the stones.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ultrasonic treatment apparatus, which is designed to incise or emulsify living tissues, or to break stones in organs, by applying ultrasonic vibration to the tissues or the stones, comprises a hand piece containing an ultrasonic oscillator, a probe attached to the hand piece, and a drive device for driving the ultrasonic oscillator.
Only a few types of hand pieces are available for use in combination with the drive device. The conventional ultrasonic treatment apparatus can not serve to incise relatively elastic tissues such as blood vessels and neural tissues, but can serve to incise other tissues. This is why it is used in various surgical operations, among which are operations on the liver which have many blood vessels or on the brain which has many neurons. In addition, the ultrasonic treatment apparatus is also employed in endoscopic surgery since it is not likely to damage the living tissues.
When the ultrasonic treatment apparatus is used, however, it is necessary for a surgeon to adjust the control values of the apparatus, such as the output of the ultrasonic oscillator, the flow rate of a liquid applied to the affected tissue, and the like, in order to accomplish the surgery successfully. Hence, several drive devices must be provided, each designed to set control values appropriate for a specific surgical operation.
Several types of hand pieces, and several types of probes must be provided, so that a surgeon may use them in many combinations to perform various surgical operations. The surgeon attaches one of the hand pieces and one of the probes to the drive device he or she has selected for the operation to be performed. Since each drive device need to be used in combination with hand pieces having different characteristics and also with probes having different characteristics, it is inevitably large and complex.